Ramona in Blue
by Rosaliebyrd13
Summary: Dudley is nothing like his father Vernon. Ramona is nothing like her father, Dudley. Things change. People grow up. And friendship can happen in the least likely of places. Ramona's in blue, and she's got a few things to teach the wizarding world. R&R
1. The beginning after the end

"You don't have to worry anymore."

The Dursley family, formerly of number 4, Private Drive, was too shocked at the sudden appearance of the boy to register what had just been said.

Petunia Dursley, a horse-faced woman who wasn't nearly as old as she looked, gave a sort of startled shriek at the sight of her dead sister's son. Vernon Dursley, a large walrus of a man who was every bit as disgusting as he appeared to be, choked on what looked to be a slice of lemon cream pie as he took in the sight of the runty freak that he had been forced to take into his home nearly seventeen years ago. Dudley Dursley, a youth who admittedly didn't look quite as massive as he used to and wasn't nearly as profoundly stupid as he appeared, watched his cousin intently.

"You don't have to worry anymore." Harry Potter wasn't really paying attention to the Dursleys. In fact he seemed to find the upper corner of peeling wallpaper very fascinating. "The war is… over. Voldemort has been killed. We're still trying to track down a few of his followers, but for the most part everything is safe. The Order's rebuilt your house, and you can return if you'd like. No one should try to kill you." The corner of peeling wall paper still had his undivided attention. It was now beginning to peel itself. "That's it I suppose. Just wanted to let you know." And then he was gone.

The spot on the carpet where Harry Potter had been standing was grimy from whatever had spattered off of him as he disappeared and reappeared. There was blood as well, round, perfectly circular spots of it.

Vernon Dursley, a man who had never been more nonplussed by the news of the end of a war, went back to eating lemon cream pie. He wondered how much money he could squeeze out of the government of freaks for making him live in such a horrible place with such unsatisfactory food because of a war he had no part in.

Petunia Dursley, a woman who was a little terrified by the appearance of her dead sister's son, a little disgusted by the residual grime left behind by him, and just the tiniest bit heartbroken by the little bit of Lily she saw in him, went to the kitchen to retrieve a hot rag and bleach. The carpet was white anyway, bleach couldn't hurt it. And if she worked quickly, the boy would have no permanent mark on her carpet, let alone her life.

Dudley Dursley helped his mother clean. Then he picked up the empty pie tin from its precarious position balanced on his father's gargantuan belly. Then he retreated to his attic room and proceeded to beat the tar out of the punching bag that had helped him melt away so many pounds of loose flesh in the last ten or so months.

Later that evening, after Vernon Dursley had finished his second apple torte and when Petunia Dursley was finally satisfied with the state of the carpet, Dudley Dursley fed the rags that had been used to clean up his cousin's blood and sweat and grime into the fire one by one. And he watched them burn. And he knew that that was the last he would be hearing from Harry Potter for a very long time.

**AN: Hope you like it, and I hope you keep reading!**


	2. Dudley's best Worst Mistake

Dudley Dursley had screwed up quite a bit in his relatively short life. He had broken expensive family heirlooms (not that his parents had minded much). He had made terrible grades for most of his upper level classes (not that his parents had been concerned by it). He had gorged himself until he was no longer smaller than his father (a feat that had taken years of disgusting behavior and spoiled antics, neither of which seemed to bother his parents).

Then of course, there was what Dudley Dursley considered to be his greatest sin (but it was okay because his father had told him when he was young and impressionable that only the weak got beat up). Being the neighborhood bully had made him the big man on the block. He ran with a gang, wore his pants sagging and had a mouth so foul it would've made a pro-wrestler cringe. And he beat the shit out of everyone he came across. Harry especially. (It only made his parents proud.)

He'd gotten over most of that stuff now. Dudley Dursley, for all of his faults and screw ups and sins had, for the most part, moved passed his youth. He'd learned the value of things. He'd learned that when working part time and going to school full time while paying for an apartment and food and clothing and books and utilities one didn't have a lot left over with which to buy new things. And the way to avoid buying new things was to avoid breaking the old ones. Dudley Dursley had learned that if he wanted to continue to play American football for the university team he needed to have acceptable grades. And since one couldn't spend their entire life playing university football, he also needed the grades to learn enough to get a job.

Dudley had also learned something very surprising about himself during his months of hiding in a cottage with only his parents and two very peculiar wizards (witches?) while the magical world waged a war that really sounded like something more out of a fantasy novel and the normal world continued on their merry way towards destruction. Really it was two somethings that Dudley Dursley discovered about himself. The first was that, when all else failed and there was nothing left to keep him from chewing on the furniture out of pure boredom, Dudley could take a run with one of his strange magical guardians. At first he was slow and Hestia was mean and he came back from every run completely soaked in his own sweat and seemingly melting body fat. Over time though Dudley got faster, could endure more, and his conversations with Hestia turned from biting insults about his weight and her freakishness to conversations about the outside world.

That is where Dudley Dursley's second discovery came from. He no longer felt the need to lay fist to flesh, and really, what had beating smaller kids up ever done from him (except for garner his father's approval). After all, he had beat the tar out of Harry almost every day of his life until they were eleven and then after that only in the summers. Dudley had insulted Harry's mother, his dead friend, his father, his teachers, and his freakishness. And in the end Harry had saved Dudley from a fate worse than death. Really, if that hadn't been a wakeup call, Hestia's no bullshit attitude had certainly helped this self-discovery process on its way.

So yes, Dudley Dursley had screwed up. A lot. Most of his childhood had been a long streak of naïve mistakes. But he had mostly fixed himself up and moved himself on. He had moved to America to go to university and play American football, something he was quite good at. He had attended classes, decided on a major (civil engineering because his father was in construction and his grandfather had been in construction and honestly, working with his hands was better than trying to develop a dizzying intellect), and met a girl that he was quite fond of.

A girl who was currently looking at him with a look of wide eyed fear and horror. And slight nausea.

Dudley Dursley knew for a fact that despite all his progress, despite all his hard work, he hadn't screwed up this badly in a very long time. In fact he was sure that he had never messed up so badly in his entire life.

"What do we do?" he didn't even think about the words before they came spilling out of his mouth. The couch was nearly swallowing him and he was sure the temperature in the room had gone up a good ten degrees since Sarah had announced the news. But he still managed to lean forward and grip her hand. She hadn't really been reaching for him, but it was he that needed the comfort now.

Sarah had never looked smaller. Normally she was the tallest girl in the room, five feet eleven with mile long legs that were a perfect, natural tan. But today, sitting on the couch facing him, Sarah had never looked smaller. Her toned legs were curled up underneath her and her blonde ponytail was sticking up in all sorts of crazy directions. And she looked sick. And terrified. And she was glowing.

"Sarah! What do we do?" Dudley didn't find himself having to repeat himself often, but he knew that almost nothing of what he was saying was making it to Sarah.

She jerked her head up to look at him, her eyes narrowing for a challenge. "What do _we_ do? _We_, Dudley? I think you've done plenty. The question is what am_ I_ going to do!" Her voice trailed off into a moan and she curled in on herself to hide her head, shoulders sagging.

"Hey now!" Dudley had to work very hard to keep his voice even. "This is both of our faults! I think we should handle this together."

"Handle it how, Dudley? How! I'm nineteen! And you're twenty! And we're both in school and I'm not even sure if I'm in love with you!" And then Sarah's voice changed from high pitched hysteria to low urgency. "Oh god! Dudley! My parents! What do I say? This is insane! They're going to kill me! I'm nineteen!" Now she clutched at his hand, her fingers digging into the back of his hand. He didn't flinch, realizing that really, the pain she was causing his hand _right now _was nothing compared to the pain she would be feeling if she decided to… have his baby.

Baby.

Baby.

Geeze.

Logically Dudley Dursley knew that unprotected sex resulted in positive drug store tests which resulted in pregnancies which generally wound up resulting with kids, or more exactly, babies. Logically, Dudley Dursley was quite aware of all of this information.

But Dudley Dursley was not in a logical type of mood at that moment. In fact, Dudley was feeling pretty illogical. And his illogical thoughts were what led him to say the very next thing that popped into his head.

"Does it matter?" He could see Sarah's eyes beginning to smolder at him, and not in the _I want your nekked body type of way, _but more in the_ I want your intestines on a stick_ type of way. "I mean, think about it Sarah. Who cares if you're nineteen and I'm twenty and we're still in school and your parents are going to kill us both! I've got money saved away since I've been getting so many scholarships lately and I've got the apartment. And I've got a job. And I'm two years away from graduating, and then I can get a better job."

"And the fact that we're not in love?"

"Well, we'll work around that for now. Or we can fix that later, if you really want to. Doesn't matter. The way I see it, either way you end up permanently stuck with me, something I am a huge fan of." Dudley gave Sarah one of his more (hopefully) reassuring grins. They could work this out, he was sure of it.


	3. Bean Becomes Ramona

"AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"

Dudley Dursley's right hand was being crushed by his sort-of-maybe-girlfriend. He didn't make a big deal out of it though because his sort-of-maybe-girl-friend was currently in the middle of a contraction that had interrupted a very terrified med-student telling her that it would be at least another two hours before the baby could be born. So now was not a good time to bring up the crushing of his throwing hand. Instead he stood by silently (and hopefully stoically) and prayed that the terrified med-student was wrong, and that it wouldn't actually be another two hours of this madness.

(He also prayed a quieter prayer that the med-student could run fast, because he really didn't want to end up sued by the hospital if his sort-of-maybe-girlfriend killed the poor kid.)

Sarah Kelly was not in a good place. For the past nine months she had been steadily gaining weight and losing control of her emotions. And while Dudley had been there with her for almost every second, there were some things that he just did not understand and was not equipped to deal with. Those were the times Sarah had sent him out for Oreos, Bugles, Pickles, and a pint of green sherbet. And then Amy The Best Friend would come over and Sarah would eat and talk and maybe cry while eating some more. (Amy The Best Friend earned her title after responding to a desperate text message at three in the morning while at a club on a Friday night.)

So now, after months of this craziness, after nine months full of hormonal angst, uncontrolled emotional eating and one horribly awkward visit home ("Hey mom, meet my sort-of-boyfriend Dudley. I'm pregnant.") After all this, a med-student who didn't look old enough to grow a beard was telling her that the pain of childbirth would last at least two more hours.

Sarah was ready to shish kabob the next person who sounded remotely cheerful and/or brought bad news. That was exactly what she told the already frightened med-student. Funnily enough, about a millisecond later he found a reason to flee the room. (He was both of those things.)

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

"AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH I FUCKING HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!"

For the past two and a half hours Sarah had grown steadily more vocal, and Dudley had grown exponentially more frightened for the future of his –ahem- manhood.

He had also quit trying to form an actual apology, and was now sticking to a constant stream of _sorrysorrysorry shit! Just hang on please ahhshit no, I know it sucks I'm really sorry babe, Ouch! Okay not babe! Sorrysorrysorry shit!_

Meanwhile in the special maternity wing lobby, Sarah's parents were watching Winnie the Pooh and pretending that it was not their nineteen year old daughter they heard swearing like a sailor.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Sarah's blonde hair was kind of nasty looking and plastered to her neck and face by a thick sheen of sweat.

Dudley's right hand was red and a bit swollen and he was breathing like he had just run a marathon.

And the yet un-named baby was wrinkly, slightly purple, and really really small.

Dudley was not sure he had ever seen a smaller human being. He was sure, however, that he had never seen a more beautiful baby.

"Hey," He nudged Sarah with his shoulder and she shifted over on the bed to make room for him. "What are we going to name it?"

"Her, Dudley. It's officially a Her. And I have no idea." Sarah looked down at the baby. For nine months this tiny little human being had been growing inside her. For nine months she and Dudley had looked down at her stomach (which had become, over time, a separate entity) and called the baby growing inside it Bean (because that's all it looked like on the sonograms for a really long time). Now though, Bean needed a name. A female name.

"Well she really doesn't look like a Charlotte." Charlotte had been one of the names on the list. Dudley had rather liked the idea of being able to call his daughter Charlie. Now though, looking at the (tiny) infant (purplish) girl, he couldn't see her as a Charlotte.

"Yeah. And I'm really sorry, but the only flower I can think of right now is Daffodil, and I refuse to subject such a helpless being to such a horrible name." The flower-for-a-name idea had been in the running, but Dudley agreed, the (tiny) infant (purplish) girl did not deserve to be called Daffodil.

"Well, what's a name that she won't be made fun of for?"

"What do we name her so that there won't be six other girls in her class with her name?" Sarah had been one of seven Sarahs in elementary school, one of ten in highschool, and one of twenty-three in college.

"What can you picture yourself yelling when you're running late in the morning?" Dudley himself could only picture yelling… "What about Ramona?"

Sarah's mouth twitched, and she squinted down at Bean, trying to decide if she saw a Ramona. Bean wrinkled her nose and started wiggling, not seeming to care that the fate of her name was being decided.

"Ramona." Sarah tried it, rolling the syllables around in her mouth. "Ramona. Raaaamona Rammoooooonna." She looked back down to Bean (who still didn't seem to have an opinion) and then looked to Dudley. "Yeah. Ramona's good. I like Ramona,"

"Ramona. Okay. What about middle name?"

"Ramona Penelope?" They both wrinkled their noses.

"Ramona Charlotte?" Sarah made a face.

"Ramona Harley?" Dudley made a face.

"Ramona Alice?" Bean made a weird face. (Probably an I-just-pooped face, but it was taken as an omen by both Sarah and Dudley.)

"Okay. Let's think. What's something that isn't too fancy or classy sounding, but something that isn't too trailer-trashey?"

"Trailer-trashey?" Dudley was unfamiliar with the phrase, but whatever it was, it didn't sound good.

"Yeah. Like ShaLonDiqua. Or Ladasha."

"Ramona ShaLonDiqua. Hmm. Has a nice ring—"

"Don't even think about it!" Sarah sighed. This was a lot harder than she had been led to believe. "Okay. Ramona Something. Ramona Blank. Ramona… Ramona June."

"Ramona June?"

"Got a better idea?"

"No. I like it. Ramona June," Dudley could definitely picture himself yelling _Ramona June we're running late!_ But there was another thing that nagged at him. He couldn't picture himself yelling _Ramona June we're running late, I have to drop you at your mother's house for the week. _He didn't want to say that. So he decided instead to ask Sarah. "Sarah?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Now that we've had the baby, and named it-her, I've got a question."

"Hmmm?"

"Can she be Ramona June Dursley? And could you be my girlfriend? Like definite girlfriend? Not maybe-possibly, but just, you know, girlfriend?" Dudley Dursley had never before asked such a convoluted question, and he had certainly never before been so nervous for an answer.

Sarah thought for a minute. Dudley and she had practically lived together during the pregnancy, and he had been very kind, very attentive, very understanding. Not only that, but he hadn't pushed her or pressured her or asked her to marry him or anything weird like that. Instead, Dudley Dursley had put up with her haywire emotions, her strange food cravings and her erratic hormones. Dudley had read all the parenting books with her, attended all the birthing/parenting classes with her and (most importantly) _not_ told her he loved her.

Sarah smiled "Yeah. Okay. Ramona June Dursley. And yeah, okay, I'll be your for-serious girlfriend."

"Oh thank god!" Dudley breathed a sigh of relief.

Sarah giggled, and then stretched up to kiss him firmly on the lips. "I really really really like you Dudley Dursley."

"I really really really like you Sarah Kelly, my dearest girlfriend and mother of my child."

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Two months later at two-thirty in the morning when Ramona wouldn't stop crying and he got up to take care of her, Sarah told Dudley that she loved him. A week later when he came home from midterms and she greeted him with a kiss and a cold mountain dew, Dudley told Sarah he loved her.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

On Ramona's first birthday Dudley proposed to Sarah. She said yes, and three days later they were happily Mr. and Mrs. Dudley and Sarah Dursley.

Ramona, not to be forgotten, giggled madly throughout the entire affair and spat up all over the Judge.


	4. The Chaos of Children

SIXTEEN YEARS LATER

Dudley Dursley returned home from work at the architecture firm to his house on Howard Lane. The house was red brick with yellow shutters and a door; a squat, one story affair that he loved dearly, not because of what it looked like, but because of who was inside.

"DAAADDD's home!" The delighted yells of Dudley's children greeted him at the door and he stumbled and laughed as their small bodies slammed into him.

"Hey boys, how was your day?" he set down his briefcase and then turned around to hoist his two sons up, one over each shoulder. Then he carried them into the living room and plopped them on the sofa. Wes immediately jumped up for another go but Art, the elder of the brothers, stayed seated staring at his knees.

Dudley frowned at this rather abnormal behavior and then threw Wes over his shoulder again before wandering into the kitchen. "Sarah, my love!" He greeted his beautiful wife. He set Wes down and sent him scampering before walking the rest of the way to Sarah and kissing her enthusiastically. "How was your day?"

"Your son set his teacher's wig on fire." Sarah gave him the look, the you-know-what-this-means look, and then turned back to the stove to stir the spaghetti.

Dudley lowered himself into a kitchen chair. "Art set Mrs. Gerber's wig on fire?" He rubbed a hand across his face, trying to process that.

"Not that anyone saw him do it, of course, but he confessed immediately." Sarah sighed and swung her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder. "They didn't even ask him if he did it, the school councilor came in to ask if anyone wanted to talk about what happened and Art started crying and saying he didn't mean to." She pressed her lips into a line and continued to cook supper. She loved all her children with all her heart, but sometimes she wished she hadn't brought Arthur up to be so honest.

"So they don't think he did it?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, they think it was a freak accident. The councilor did suggest that we send him to a child specialist to see if they can figure out why he's confessing to all these things that he didn't do."

Dudley ran a hand through his hair. "Arthur, son, could you come in here?"

Both Art and Wes came to the kitchen, Art trudging and Wes dancing around, pleased that his older brother was finally in trouble for something.

"Wes, why don't you go play in your room while you father and I talk to Art. Play quietly though, Hilly's still asleep!" Wes scowled at his mother, but headed towards his room.

Sarah turned the stove down and went to sit at the table by Dudley, pulling her oldest son into her lap while she did so. "Art, kid, I don't know what to say."

"Why don't you tell us what happened Arty." Dudley kept his voice quiet, and made sure to look his son in the eye, letting him know he wasn't mad.

Arthur snuggled into his mother's embrace, "I didn't mean to," his voice was miserable and small, "She was being really strict with all these rules about how we couldn't do this and we weren't supposed to do that. It's just a math problem Dad! I don't understand why I got a zero on my homework if all of my answers were right! And she wouldn't explain why we had to do things her way and so I got really really mad and…" he gulped a bit and then his voice became almost inaudible. "her wig caught on fire. And I'm really really sorry."

Dudley took in a deep breath of air, readying himself to tackle the problem, but Sarah beat him to it.

"Art, honey, sometimes life is epically unfair. Sometimes we have really strict teachers who make up rules that don't make any sense to us. But you know what?" She squeezed Art extra hard, "School is like a game. You have to follow all the rules and you have to do all the work. I know that sometimes it stinks, and you don't want to, but for now, kid, you just have to play the game." She looked at Dudley, her eyes telling him that it was his turn.

Dudley did not know what to say. So he said the first thing that came to mind. "Arthur, son, sometimes things happen that seem like they're our fault, but they really aren't. It's not your fault that Mrs. Gerber's wig caught on fire. Now I'm going to tell you something completely contradictory to everything you've ever heard before." Art perked up a bit, leaning forward like he was about to be let in on a really big secret. "The next time something like this happens, please don't tell your teacher or councilor that it was you. If you didn't actually physically _do_ it, don't admit to it, okay son?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. She sometimes had no idea how their children had managed to survive past infancy.

Dudley shrugged. All in all, he thought they we're doing this parent thing really well.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Later that night, after the children were finally all asleep and Sarah had gone to bed, Dudley found himself unable to fall asleep.

So instead he sat at the kitchen table with a cup of good, strong coffee, and thought.

Dudley thought about his life, how perfect it all seemed, and how lucky he was. He had a job as a partner at an architecture firm as an engineer, and with his job he was able to provide for his wife and children. Sarah, beautiful girl that she was, had agreed to marry him and together they had lived through ups and downs, somehow managing to stay madly in love.

Then Dudley thought about his four children, each one of them dear, and none of them remotely perfect.

His youngest daughter, Helena (or as she had been affectionately nick-named, Hilly) was almost two, and very loving. She loved hugging and laughing and had the most charming smile. She was an unexpected happiness, as Sarah had said, and Dudley had agreed.

Next oldest was Wes, and at eight he was caught between hero worship of his father and hero worship of his brother. He had the always happy attitude of a kid who knew that he was loved, would never go hungry, and would always have friends. He also had the boundless energy that Dudley was beginning to recognize as a trait that ran through all his children.

Then there was Arthur. Sometimes Dudley Dursley was perplexed by his oldest son Arthur. Arthur was quiet, brilliant, and not a trouble maker. And he had a habit of confessing to misdeeds that logically it was impossible for him to have committed. One didn't even have to ask about _why exactly_ there was a kitchen chair on the roof or _who_ had dyed the dog green, Art simply approached his parents and apologized. Sometimes Dudley wondered to himself if it was possible to raise a child that was too honest.

This behavior also confused him because it was the exact opposite of how his oldest daughter, Ramona acted. Granted Dudley and Sarah had been much younger and less experienced when they were bringing up Ramona.

Ramona was wild. Sometimes Dudley tried to think of it as a bad trait, one that had to be curbed, but it the end he couldn't. Ramona's wildness wasn't really a bad thing, though it wasn't necessarily a good thing. It just was. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Ramona is Wild.

(Sarah's mother had joked that Ramona was a flower child, born to float freely and protest for human rights and join the Peace Corps, and Dudley's mother agreed.)

Unlike Arthur, getting Ramona to admit to her misdeeds had been like pulling teeth. And Ramona's misdeeds were very obviously her own, one didn't have to ask _how_ she had died her baby-sitters skin blue, or _how_ _exactly_ she had managed to end up dangling upside down by a sock from the ceiling fan. One simply _found_ Ramona sporting a shit-eating grin in close proximity to a disaster.

(She was, as Sarah's father had cheerfully stated when he found Ramona switching book jackets at the library, a hell-raiser. Dudley's father agreed.)

From the moment she could walk, Ramona ran. From the moment she could talk, she babbled incessantly, and when she wasn't talking she was scheming. She argued until her opponent caved in or got so confused they began arguing her point without meaning to.

Sarah was at her wits end, and was about to give up trying to control her entirely, when something amazing happened.

Ramona found music.

Ramona found music and for once she wasn't babbling, she was listening. Carefully. And when she was talking she was asking questions. Suddenly her insatiable need for trouble was turned into an insatiable need for music. More accurately it morphed into an insatiable need for piano music. And then it became a need to master the piano.

Dudley and Sarah Dursley were astounded when they listened to their seven year old daughter play in her first recital. Dudley himself was not musical, had never been musical. Sarah swore up and down that the year she had spent in the elementary school band had been the worst of her life. And yet Ramona, trouble maker, hellion, and full of boundless energy, was (as the piano teacher had tearfully exclaimed) a piano prodigy.

After that the trouble making seemed to fade away. Ramona still caused chaos, but the chaos itself was less destructive than it once had been. Instead of mixing all of the breakfast cereal together, Ramona wore mismatched socks. Instead of clipping out certain specific words from every page of every newspaper, Ramona painted her room with a myriad of violently clashing colors.

When Ramona turned eleven, her passion for playing piano turned into an outright goal, one that shone through in her eyes at all times_. I_, Ramona announced, _am going to be a concert pianist_. And that was that. With one sentence Ramona had yet again completely changed the world.

Dudley sighed. His coffee had turned cold, and despite its strength, was failing to keep him awake.

"Dudley?" He turned around to see Sarah standing in the kitchen in a very large tee-shirt that she wore as pajamas, her hair tossed and slept on, her eyes sleepy. She walked over to him and situated herself on his lap, laying her head on his shoulder. "Dudley, you know what we have to do now, right?" She was speaking, of course, about the Arthur situation.

He nodded.

"I know you wanted to wait, to be one hundred percent sure, but babe, I don't think we're going to get surer than this. It's time to write your cousin. If there's anything we can be doing to help and support Arty, then I want to do it." Sarah looked at him intently and again Dudley nodded.

"I'll write Harry in the morning then, shall I?"

"That would be good. Oh, and Ramona called. She says, and I quote, _don't believe anything the dean of students tells you, Gideon and I were not caught having sex, we were researching the history of the ritualistic, sacrificial killing of humans." _Sarah chuckled. "Whatever that means. Have you gotten an email from the school administration lately?"

"Only that her scholarship was being extended to cover her text books. Oh, and that she's not allowed to go to Prom. Do you think that has something to do with whatever she and that boy were caught not doing?" Dudley Dursley had long since stopped worrying about the emails that he received from the administration of his daughter's boarding school.

"Probably." Sarah sighed. She had been reluctant at first when Ramona announced that she wanted to attend a high school for the arts, and oh, it was in Montana. But at the academy Ramona had found true friends and a niche to fit herself into that let her be as wild and passionate as she wanted. And Sarah had to admit, her exuberant oldest daughter seemed more calm and responsible these days. She looked back to her husband, noticing that he looked exhausted. "Okay. Let's go to bed. In the morning you'll write cousin Harry, and then we'll decide how to proceed from there."

"Of course, love."

Dudley began composing his letter to Harry, the cousin he hadn't seen in person in nineteen years, almost immediately.

_Dear Harry,_

_I write bearing odd news. The world is a strange place, and my wife and I find ourselves in need of your assistance. Our son, Arthur, looks like he's going to be a great whopping wizard…._


	5. Corespondence

Dear Harry,

I hope this letter finds you and your family well. We all enjoyed the photo that came with your last Christmas card, and hope you'll forgive us for not sending a photo of our own. It's quite difficult to round everybody up for a photo these days what with Ramona being off at school and Art and Wes having so much energy. Combine this with Helena's new favorite activity, hide and seek, and I don't think we've taken a proper family portrait in at least two years.

I'd better get down to business though. I write bearing odd (not bad, but odd) news. The world is a very curious place, and my wife and I find ourselves seeking your advice and assistance. Our oldest son, Arthur, looks like he's going to be a smashing wizard.

Art's a good boy, quick as a whip and very energetic, but lately his _abilities_ have been causing him trouble at school. Most recently he accidentally set his teacher's wig on fire. This is only the most recent in a long line of interesting occurrences (other such occurrences include dying the family dog green and gluing his younger brother to the wall). I don't want to stir up trouble, but Arthur's a good boy and I hate to see him getting so upset over something he really has no control over.

I write hoping you have a solution, or at least some insightful tips as to how we can help Art stay out of trouble until he's old enough to start _school._

I realize that this all must be completely out of the blue and that I have no right to expect help from you, but I would be most grateful for whatever you have to say.

Yours,

Dudley Dursley

P.S. Enclosed is a picture that Helena drew to stand in for the missing family portrait. If you squint and cock your head to the side it looks a bit more like us and less like a flock of rabid green flamingos.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Dear Dudley,

Your letter found us quite well, as did the portrait of your lovely (green) family. We, of course, understand the trials of taking family portraits (my wife Ginny is one of seven children, all of whom have procreated with abandon) and appreciate the lovely picture that Helena drew. It is now tacked on the mantel along with all the other portraits of various relations.

To say that your letter was a surprise would be an understatement. I was under the impression that all of your children were very… regular, if not a bit wild. Please don't take this as an insult, I only meant that I truly was not expecting to hear from you in this manner. With that said may I offer my sincere congratulations on the magical tendencies of your offspring. You are now in for the bumpiest roller coaster of your life!

Before I get ahead of myself though, let's talk details. How old is Arthur? Do you have a preference in where he goes to school? Have you received any contact from the American United Magical government yet?

I am happy to help you and Sarah navigate the coming months and years. I am also happy to hear that you seem to have accepted your son's nature rather than condemning it. And, Dudley, don't worry about what happened in the past. I trust that we both have moved on from the ways of our childhood and can now face each other as equals.

Yours,

Harry Potter

P.S. None of my children felt like drawing you a picture, so you'll have to settle for this macaroni necklace that Lily brought home the other day.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Dear Harry,

I guess I shouldn't be too offended that you thought I'd toss my own son out onto the street for being magical. Of course I have done quite a bit of growing up since we last saw each other. My wife Sarah says that when she first met me I was just a meat head jock, whatever that means.

To answer your questions, Art is ten years old; he'll turn eleven in April. As to the second question, we're not sure. While Sarah and I would like to keep him near, we understand that Hogwarts has quite the positive reputation. Really, we want to send Art to where ever he will get the best education. I'm not sure about these Americans. I've lived among them for the past eighteen years and still have trouble making heads or tails out of what they're saying. (Sarah says that that's just me being a snob.)

We haven't heard anything from the magical government here. Frankly I'm a bit surprised! That time you levitated a cake onto one of dad's clients your ministry responded so fast my head was spinning!

By the way, Sarah wants to know if there's ever a time we can get together to talk and introduce the kids. Spring break is coming up soon and this year we're lucky enough to have all the kids out of school at once.

Yours,

Dudley

P.S. Tell Lily thanks very much for the necklace. Enclosed is a story Wes wrote about our family for his second grade English class. He's quite proud of it, especially since it got him sent to the councilor's office to talk about why it's not nice to write stories about people trapped in basements.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Dear Dudley,

The entire family greatly enjoyed Wes's story. Ginny recons he'll be a great novel writer if he doesn't turn into a serial killer first.

As it turns out, Art will be in the same year as my second son, Albus. That may or may not sway your decision on where to send young Arthur for magic school, but at least know that if he comes to Hogwarts he'll have a large number of family members there looking out for him.

I can see that you weren't paying attention when I told you that it was not I that dropped that pudding on your father's client's head, but a rouge house elf. Never the less, you are right, it is odd that the American ministry hasn't shown up yet to at least explain the situation to you. Then again, I've never been able to understand the inner workings of any type of American Government. My sister-in-law Hermione claims that they have a very unique and wholly wonderful way of running things, but I just think they're odd.

Ginny agrees that it would be wonderful to have a sort of family reunion. James should be home from school on Easter holiday around the same time your kids are out of school. It might be better for you all to come visit us in England though, just so Art can get a feel for the whole family and the weather. Let me know when you want to start working out details.

Yours,

Harry

P.S. James wants to know if Art likes to fly, and Lily wants to know if Hilly is old enough to go adventuring. Fair warning, the entire Weasley family (my wife's family of redheads, in case you've forgotten) is mental.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Harry Potter sighed and attached the latest letter to the leg of his owl, Gravy (named by a three year old Teddy so long ago).

Recently Gravy had been getting plenty of exercise. Flying between his residence in Godric's Hollow and the Dursley house in North Carolina, Gravy deserved every treat Harry could scrounge up for him, plus whatever morsel Lily had been sneaking him.

Harry watched the large grey owl take flight, and he felt that old and familiar twinge of his heart. That twinge that came about whenever he thought of his childhood before Hogwarts. Life with the Dursleys in number four, Private Drive had been rather unpleasant, and he didn't often reminisce about growing up in the terrifying shadow of his cousin Dudley.

With the letters passing back and forth though, Harry thought he could recognize a lot of the change that had taken place in his large cousin's life since the end of the wizarding war. The first big change had come a couple years after the end of the war, when Harry received a Christmas card from Dudley. It had been a simple muggle photo that showed his not-so-large-anymore cousin standing next to a beautiful blonde woman with a wide eyed baby girl sitting on his shoulders. The inscription read "Happy Holidays from Dudley Dursley, Sarah Kelly and Ramona June" on the back of the photo was a hastily scribbled message. _Happy Christmas Harry, hope it's okay that we sent the card – Dudley. _

Since that first Christmas card, Harry had kept in touch with Dudley in the barest sense of the word. They exchanged Christmas cards with impersonal and vague messages that almost always included a family portrait. On occasion Dudley would remember that it was one of the kid's birthdays and send a small gift. Harry had watched the wide eyed baby girl grow into a chaotic looking child though the progression of portraits, and had reacted with mild interest when the greeting on the cards had gone from listing the family names separately to saying _From the Dursley Family_.

That was as far as the relationship had gone though. Impersonal greetings had become more and more hastily written and family portraits became more and more rare. Until now.

Now Harry found himself writing long letters to his once-despised cousin, letters full of humor and mutual jest. Tacked on his mantel was a picture drawn by Dudley's youngest daughter, and in the kitchen on the counter was a story written by his son. Likewise he had sent along one of Lily's many art projects and was now planning a get together of sorts over Easter Holidays.

Harry Potter did not know what to make of the recent turn of events. He could only hope that things went well when Dudley saw just how chaotic life could be when raising magical children.


	6. Playing Pass the Phone with the Dursleys

"Mona?"

Ramona Dursley rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and squinted at the clock, the red numbers showed that it was a little past two in the morning.

"Mona?" The tiny voice said again. This time she recognized who was speaking.

"Wes? Wes, what is it, what's wrong?" Wes didn't call Ramona very often, and never before had he called in the middle of the night. Ramona's heart began beating double-time. Something was wrong, she was sure of it.

From across the room, her roommate Heidi groaned, an irritated noise that meant she was not happy about having her sleep interrupted. Ramona ignored her, carrying her cell phone into the bathroom.

"Mona something's happened." Wes sounded very small and very young, which scared her badly.

"Wes, tell me!"

"I heard Mum and Dad talking. I know I wasn't supposed to be up, but I was, and I heard them." The little boy sounded close to tears.

"It'll be okay Wesley, just tell me what you heard." Ramona was close to panicking; quickly pacing the length of the tiny bathroom she shared with four other girls.

"They were talking about Arthur, Mona! They were saying that they're going to have to send him away to live somewhere else! Mona I think they're trying to get rid of him!"

She heard the rustle of fabrics and the hot breath of her baby brother. "Wes, where are you now?"

"In the closet, so Mum and Dad won't hear and send me away too."

"Okay Wes, now tell me, what exactly did you hear Mum and Dad say. Think real hard." Ramona held her breath waiting for the response.

"They said…" Wes mumbled, "They said that Art's had too many accidents now to ignore it. They were talking about Dad's cousin Harry, and saying that he knew a place where they could take Art. For his own good. Mona, I don't want them to send Arty away!"

"Shhh Wes, Don't worry, everything's going to be alright." Ramona slumped against the bathroom cabinet, shivering as the cold of the linoleum made its way through her pajama bottoms. She breathed in deeply, twice, before deciding what to do. "Wes, can you give the phone to Arty? I need to talk to him about all this."

She heard the distinctive squeak of the closet door and the shuffling of small feet as Wes crept back to his brother's bed.

_Hey, pssst, Arty wake up! _

_Hhmmmmfff what?_

_It's Mona, she wants to talk to you._

_Wes… what? _

"Hey Ramona, why'd you call?" Art sounded sleepy and confused, but not frightened, which reassured the oldest Dursley child.

"Hey Arty." Ramona tried to sound as cheerful as possible. "Actually it was Wes who called me. He … uh… overheard Mum and Dad talking about something that freaked him out a bit. Do you know what that might have been Art?"

Art sighed. Wes, go back to bed okay? "I might have set my teacher's wig on fire a few weeks back. It kinda scared Mum and Dad. They've been talking a lot with cousin Harry lately, talking about me I guess."

"Why would they be talking to cousin Harry, Art?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy." The ten year old muttered.

Ramona rolled her eyes. "Of course you're nuts Arthur, our entire family is. But you should know that I of all people will understand. Please tell me?"

"I think I'm a wizard." Art whispered into the receiver.

Ramona felt as though the air had been knocked out of her. Not that she found it at all surprising, but "Oh." She let out a squeak.

"Yeah. Oh."

"Art, can you give the phone to Mum and Dad. I need to talk to them for a moment."

"I'm sorry Mona! Please don't be mad!" Arthur sounded desperately sad, something Ramona hated.

"Don't worry Arty, we'll get this all sorted out." She said determinedly.

Across the line she heard Arthur shuffle down the stairs and to their parent's bed room.

_Hey, hey Mum… Mummy wake up!_

_Huh? Baby what is it?_

_It's Mona, she wants to talk to you and Dad._

_Oh… Dudley, Dudley get up, it's Ramona. Run get the other phone_.

"Ramona?" Sarah Dursley sounded the way she always did just after waking up, mumbly and tired. "Dear, why are you calling so late on a school night?"

"Actually, Mum, it was Wes that called me." Ramona was starting to feel cranky. Why couldn't her parents have called a family conference to talk about Arty's weirdness like civilized people? Why did they have to play pass the phone at two in the morning?

"What?" her mother was beginning to sound more and more awake. Ramona heard the click of the receiver as her father picked up the kitchen phone to join the conversation.

"Hello darling, what's got you calling at such a late hour?" Dudley Dursley asked cheerfully.

"Argh!" Ramona growled in frustration, before quickly remembering that she absolutely could not awaken her suitemates. "Look, Wes called me okay? He was terrified, hiding in the closet because he overheard you saying you were going to send Arthur away to live with distant relatives because he apparently set his teacher's wig on fire _which nobody told me about_ by the way!" She tugged angrily on her ponytail, wishing that it was not two in the morning and that she did not live with three other people so that she could shout.

For a moment, nobody spoke and then "Ramona, I am so sorry you had to find out like this." Sarah whispered.

"What? So it's true, you are going to send Arty away to live with relatives we've never even met?"

"No one's sending anyone anywhere Ramona!" Dudley spoke quietly but firmly. He hated that his oldest daughter would immediately think that he was capable of abandoning any of his children. Like dark shadows the shameful memories of his childhood were lurking at the edges of his mind.

"Then what in the world is going on Dad?"

Her father sighed. "It's true, Arthur did set Mrs. Gerber's wig on fire. We didn't tell you because we didn't want to make a big deal out of anything before we were certain about… certain things. The reason Wes overheard us talking about sending Arty to stay with my cousin Harry is because that is what we were talking about." Ramona started a retort filled with righteous indignation, but Dudley cut her off. "Ramona, dear, your brother is very different – very special – from the rest of us. He's a wizard. That's why we've been talking to cousin Harry. Harry's a wizard too, and he knows far more about that world than your mother and I ever will."

"We weren't ever going to send Arthur away, Ramona," Sarah Dursley chimed in. "We were just talking about where Arty should go to school, how we can best help him stay out of trouble until next fall when he's eligible to start magic school." And then she chuckled at how ridiculous those words sounded to her ears.

Ramona sat for a moment with her head against her knees in silent thought, and then constructed her response. "Okay. So, what's the game plan?" Having a plan, she realized would make her feel much better about everything.

Dudley was stunned at how easily his daughter was taking all of this. "But… ahhh… don't you have any, ahh, questions for us? About this whole magic thing?"

At last Ramona found herself able to laugh. "Daddy, I've known for ages that Art could do magic. It was pretty obvious growing up with him."

"What?" Both of the elder Dursley's were flabbergasted.

"Ummm… duh? I mean, he was always doing weird stuff, magical stuff. It was pretty obvious what was going on. Remember when he glued Wes to the ceiling? You can't do that with normal superglue guys!"

Sarah breathed in deeply, letting the knowledge of her older daughter sink in for a second before finding her foothold. "Alright. Well, as your father said, we aren't planning on letting anyone take Arthur anywhere. For now, everything will proceed as normal. We're still trying to make plans with Harry as to what our next step should be."

Ramona sagged in relief. "Well that's good. I was kind of afraid I'd have to quit school and take custody of the kids and work a double shift at McDonalds. Which was gonna suck by the way." She said wryly.

"Our little hellion, all grown up and responsible!" Sarah pretended to coo, doing a very unflattering impression of her mother-in-law Petunia Dursley.

"Okay parents, I'm going back to bed. Goodnight" She hoisted herself up off the bathroom floor and flipped the light switch before fumbling her way back into bed.

"Goodnight Ramona, We love you." Her father said.

"Night Pops."

From across the room Heidi groaned and rolled over. "Your family is insane." She grumbled.

"I know." Ramona smiled.


	7. Rules of Engagement

Maddy Arts Academy was, as all of the brochures and websites proclaimed, beautiful. It was located in the northwestern most corner of Montana, surrounded by trees, rivers, and mountains, and aside from the tiny village of Maddy (where many of the teachers lived) it was situated at least an hour away from any city. With a student population of 463 (a full 10% of them international) and faculty and staff numbering somewhere in the 200 range, Maddy Arts Academy was the ideal boarding school. Students were smart, artistic, and driven and teachers were patient, enthusiastic, and dedicated.

As was the case with most boarding schools, the students of Maddy lived their lives by two separate and very distinct sets of rules. The first set was one put in place by school administration and years of tradition, and extensively covered an unending list of topics including sex (not on school property), alcohol (absolutely not), drugs (never ever), and curfew (10 on weeknights, 11:30 on weekends). The second set of rules was short, clear, and put in place and upheld by every student that had ever passed through the hallowed halls of Maddy.

First: If you're going to be stupid, be smart about it. Don't get caught.

Second: Tattling is unacceptable except under very extreme circumstances.

Third: Conflicts that arise among students stay among students. Nothing ever gets solved by bringing adults into the mix.

Finally: The students of Maddy Arts Academy are a united front against all outside forces. Take care of your own, and know that you will always be taken care of.

These two sets of rules worked in tandem to keep the peace between students, staff, and administration a like. Students understood the fact that an official set of restrictions on risky behavior was probably the only reason they had been allowed to attend boarding school by their parents. Faculty, staff, and administration respected the fact that, often times, student-enforced rules were the only reason that the Academy functioned at all. And both parties recognized and exploited the fact that one could violate every single edict from one set of rules while not breaking a single rule from the other.

This was the beauty of the system, and it was precisely what Ramona Dursley walked in on, a week after the life changing late-night phone call from home.

"Jesus! Heidi!" Ramona exclaimed, and shut the door quickly so as to hide her roommate's activities. While her afternoon plans had consisted of flinging herself onto her bed the second she got back to the room and watching low rated TV on her laptop, these now made way for a different set of less fun plans: laundry. More specifically, Ramona now needed to wash all of her bedding.

Ramona's roommate Heidi did not seem too concerned by the sudden interruption in her activities, nor did the half naked boy who was not at all covered by a set of pink polka-dotted sheets. In fact, Heidi seemed to be thoroughly enjoying breaking multiple official rules. Her wild red curls only partially covered up the fact that she was only half way wearing a bra (no sexual contact between students on campus), the cigarette she elegantly balanced between two fingers had purple lipstick stains on one end (use of tobacco or tobacco products is strictly prohibited), and the fact that she was actually in her roommate's bed didn't seem to bother her one whit (respect the boundaries set by your roommate).

Ramona sat heavily on a standard issue desk chair and sighed. "You owe me laundry money. Again." She loved her roommate dearly, but was less than thrilled with the fact that this was the third time she'd walked in on Heidi fooling around with some boy in her bed.

"Sorry," Heidi grinned sheepishly as she adjusted her bra and groped around for a shirt, "Your bed is closer to the door, and we were a bit caught up…"

Ramona held up her hand, not really wanting to hear about how caught up Heidi and her boy toy had been. "Just tell me no one saw you."

Heidi nodded and handed the boy his pants. "Almost every one else is still in class. Speaking of which, don't you have some sort of piano thing right now…?"

"I got a pass from the counseling office because I had to reschedule Spring Break plans." Ramona grimaced, "Apparently I'm meeting my family in England for some type of reunion."

"Nice!" Heidi flashed a wide smile as she ushered the boy, still without a shirt, from the room and shut the door in his face. "Tell me it'll be one of those extended family affairs, you know, with hot guys that you're not actually blood related to."

"Yuck." Ramona started to strip the sheets from her bed.

Heidi shot her a quelling look. "You know what I mean. The cousin of my cousin—"

"Is not really someone I want to date. Do you ever think of anything besides boys?"

"If you say so. And yes to that second thing. Sometimes I think about girls too. " Heidi grinned coquettishly, took another drag, and began to hunt through her desk drawer for some laundry money. "But getting back to my original point, I think it's kind of sad that your bed has seen more action than you have this year."

"What's sad is that I'm letting you have consequence free sex in my bed without charging some type of fee."

"Is laundry money not a fee?"

"If you're a two dollar hooker, I suppose it is." Ramona ducked as a throw pillow whizzed past her head.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Later, in the basement, Ramona struggled to fold a fitted sheet while her best friend Kate sat idly by, reading a crisp looking copy of _The Epic of Gilgamesh_.

"I could use a little help here," Ramona grumbled over her shoulder as she tussled with the newly clean bed linens.

"UmmmHmmmm" Kate turned a page; "Maybe you wouldn't have to wash your sheets so often if you didn't let your roommate have sex on your bed." A pair of mischievous brown eyes peeked over the top of _Gilgamesh _to twinkle at Ramona.

Ramona Dursley simply wrinkled her nose. "I don't suppose this ever happens between you and Queen Alison."

Kate gave a rather un-ladylike snort, but made no comment. Of course nothing like this had ever happened to her. She lived with Alison Green, the sweetest, quietest, purest girl on campus. Ramona rather doubted that Alison possessed a single rowdy bone in her body.

For the next few minutes the laundry room was free of chatter as Kate continued reading and Ramona considered the courage required to clean out a lint filter. It was, she silently mused as she gathered her wits, rather nice to just be quiet in each other's presence. While she enjoyed rooming with Heidi and all the excitement it entailed, being friends with Kate was a more balanced experience, filled with equal parts shrill laughter and calm reflection. Kate had a great sense of humor and loved a good practical joke, but she wasn't ever out of control, and could always be counted on to be the rational mind in a room. She was the perfect counter to Ramona's jump-first instincts and love of chaos and conflict.

"So I hear you're headed to England for spring break," Kate said, putting down her book and breaking the silence. Ramona simply nodded in response, not yet sure how to feel about the recent development in her family life. "Well if you wanted, we could book the same flight to London. It's my dad's turn to have me for spring break and it might be fun to make the journey with someone for a change. We could fly first class and get drunk and smuggle monkeys and… you're definitely not paying attention, are you Ramona?"

"Huh?" Ramona pulled herself away from her thoughts, automatically resuming sheet folding.

Kate put down _Gilgamesh_ and leaned toward her very preoccupied friend. "What's up Mona Lisa? Why so dower?"

Ramona avoided Kate's gaze, choosing instead to begin transferring her freshly damp clothes to a dryer. "You haven't called me that in a while," she muttered, referring to Kate's Mona Lisa quip.

"You haven't had a secret that noticeable in a while." Kate responded. "So tell me darling, what's eating you up?"

"I can't really say," Ramona said after a minutes pause. "It's hard to explain."

"Try. I'll get the gist of it, even if you have to leave some parts out."

Ramona smiled gratefully at her friend. "These relatives that we're going to England to see… they're different. It's my dad's cousin and his family that we're visiting/staying with." She took a deep breath, "This cousin and my dad, they grew up together in the same house, raised by my grandparents. But the thing is, Harry, cousin Harry, wasn't really a part of the family. Like they really mistreated him. My grandparents, who I love, neglected him and didn't love him and…. And my dad beat him up all the time and was really horrible to him about the fact that he didn't have any parents and such." Kate listened quietly, determined not to serve judgment, "And now we're going on holiday to visit them. We are going to stay with cousin Harry and his wife and their kids for a full two weeks, in their house. And all I can think of is why the hell is Harry even letting us visit? Why the fuck is he going to allow his family to even associate with us, after everything we've done to him?"

"_You_ haven't done anything to him, Mona." Kate interrupted, her brows furrowing, "It sounds like this is all between your dad and his cousin, not between your families. And something must have changed between them, for Harry to want you to come and stay with him for two weeks. Something's got to be different for him to be willing to forgive your dad."

Ramona stayed quiet. Of course something had changed, but she couldn't tell Kate what that had been. The change between Harry and Dudley was the secret: that her ten-year-old little brother was a wizard, the very thing that had caused cousin Harry all of the abuse in the first place. Arthur Dursley was a wizard, and Harry Potter was most likely only letting the family stay with him to make sure that Arty wasn't being abused the way he had been growing up. This wasn't two cousins reconciling and two families getting to know each other, this was in the vein of a visit from Child Services. This holiday was born of mistrust, and that one fact gnawed at Ramona's heart the way very few things ever had before.

But instead of saying all of that and giving away the secret, Ramona simply nodded and offered her friend a simple thank you.

"You're welcome," Kate nodded, "And you know that I know that that isn't the whole story. But I won't pressure you, because I know that some secrets have to stay that way. And because I'm just such an awesome friend." She grinned widely

Ramona giggled, starting to feel the dark anxiety around her heart lift. Together she and Kate gathered the laundry that was done and folded and began their way back upstairs.

"If you're really that worried about meeting these people, you could just be yourself." Kate suggested.

Ramona rolled her eyes , "Genius Katie."

"Hey, I'm serious," Kate swatted her shoulder, "If you're really worried about your cousins only seeing you as your father's daughter, just show them who you really are. Your dad is great, really, but he's not you. And anyone who took a second to listen to any one of your harebrained schemes would know that."

"So you're saying…?"

"I'm saying that you should arrive in style and in your own way. Be yourself from the beginning. Let them know what they're in for. How would the real Ramona Dursley show up to some event she really doesn't want to attend?"

Ramona felt her smile automatically widen at the prospect, and her thoughts were immediately spinning a million miles per minute, all thoughts of familial mistrust and secrets forgotten. "How would the real Ramona Dursley express her distaste for being summoned to an event she doesn't want to attend?"

"How indeed."


	8. A Rather Eventful Sunday Brunch

Harry Potter was not dreading Sunday lunch at the Burrow. He was merely feeling the slightest bit peaky, just a tad off color, a smidge under the weather. What he was feeling had nothing to do with nerves or anxiety or anything of the sort (he was a war hero, for Merlin's sake! He didn't have a nervous bone in his body!), the fact of the matter was that he was ill.

This was what he tried to convince his wife of anyway.

Ginny Potter would have none of it though. "Don't be a baby, Harry. You didn't make it this far in life by only telling people what they wanted to hear." She smoothed out the shoulders of his brown tweed robes primly before reaching up a hand to ruffle his hair mischievously.

"Course I did, Gin. That's how you get anywhere in life. By being a kiss ass. And I happen to be one of the best."

Ginny simply rolled her eyes. "Well you've got to learn how to deliver bad news sooner or later. Might as well start today. It's not even bad news, really."

"No. But I bet your family won't see it that way."

Both Potters grimaced briefly before setting out to coral their children.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Later that day in the back yard of a cheerfully off-kilter house known as the Burrow, after the fervor of rich food had mellowed into many different scattered conversations, Ginny Potter delivered a swift, sharp kick to her husband's shin. At least she thought it was her husband's shin.

"Ow! Merlin's saggy left—" Ron cut himself off, knowing that there were many youngsters with their ears perked up, hoping to hear a naughty word. "Whatja do that for, Gin?" he scowled, clutching his injured leg.

"Sorry Ron. That was meant for Harry." Ginny said, rather unapologetically.

Ron turned to Harry, giving him an appraising look, "What on earth did you do to deserve that?"

"He's being a baby," Ginny answered for her husband.

"Oi! Am not!" Harry protested.

"Are too!" Ginny shot back. "Cowdy cowdy custard, that's what you are."

"Am not! I am simply—"

"Waiting for the end of the world so that you don't have to tell them?"

"Well no, but—"

"Hey, HEY!" Hermione shouted over the bickering couple, immediately drawing the attention of every person at the table. "What is it you've got to tell us, Harry?" The family all fell silent in anticipation of his answer.

Harry swallowed loudly, hoping to dispel the furious dry mouth that he was currently experiencing. Something told him that he should stand up for the announcement. No, he decided as soon as he was standing, this felt weird. Really he should sit down. Or maybe stand. People stood when delivering important information, didn't they? He reaffirmed his decision to stand.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Harry." Ginny muttered, smiling a bit at her husband's frog like antics.

"Shhh" Hermione shushed her sister-in-law.

Harry cleared his throat again. "Well, everyone," he croaked, "I have some news."

"Spit it out then," George called out. Someone elbowed him to keep him from any further catcalls.

Harry began again. "I've recently been in contact with my cousin Dudley—"

"That walrus?"

"Yeah. Well no, he's not quite so large anymore, but that's not the point." Harry's face was getting a bit flushed. "The point is that Dudley wrote me about a month ago because his eldest son is a Wizard, and about to turn eleven. Lately it's been especially hard for them to explain away all the accidental magic to teachers and friends and so he wrote for advice and then we started talking about what schools to look at and logistics of keeping the International Statute of Secrecy and—"

"Hold on Harry," Hermione held her hand in the air, as though they were all back in a Hogwarts classroom and a professor had failed to properly explain a concept. "Just to reiterate, your news is that Dudley's son is a Wizard," Harry nodded, "And he's asking for your help to…?"

"Well it sounds like he just wants to keep Arthur out of trouble until he can start school next fall." Harry clarified. "He was also asking about what schools they should expect letters from, or if anyone official would be coming round to explain everything to them."

Hermione's eyes narrowed, her mind obviously whirring with possibilities, "Well, seeing as your cousin's son is American—"

"How'd you know that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Gravy's been carrying letters with American addresses for the past month and you know very few wizards from the colonies. As I was saying, since… Arthur, did you say? is American, there are only really two or three schools that he could attend. Academie de Lafayette is somewhere in the southern region of the country, I believe, and then there's New York Conservatory for Applied and Theoretic Magics up north. There might be a school in the west… it's something like Greener Minds Cooperative, but I wouldn't think that that would be a wise educational decision—"

"What, no Hogwarts?" Ron cut off his wife's rambling.

"Hogwarts only takes students from the British Isles, Ronnie," Someone further down the table said. "And this kid doesn't qualify."

"Well actually, all of the Dursley children are British citizens, and once more, Dudley still owns his parent's old house on Private Drive." Harry corrected. "So technically, Arthur could start Hogwarts with Albus and Rose in the fall, if they chose to send him here." He wondered if any of the family could see where he was headed with this announcement.

Hermione looked like she was beginning to understand what was going on. Her lips were pursed and there was a slight crease between her brows that always denoted a puzzle being solved. "So when are we to expect them?" she asked.

From around the table came choruses of "What?" and "Huh?"

"Well it's obvious, isn't it? Harry's invited the Dursley family to come stay with him, to see how Arthur fairs. It'll be a good chance for him to get to know the family, and all of the children currently at Hogwarts. Meanwhile, we can assure Mr. and Mrs. Dursley that their son will be perfectly safe at Hogwarts—"

"Yeah right." Ron snorted, "And why should Harry have invited these people over to stay anyway? They've got their own house, he just said so, and they can stay there as long as they bloody well please. Harry doesn't owe that flobberworm anything," From around the table came similar mutterings of disbelief and dislike.

Something flared up in Harry's chest at his best friend's words, entirely dispelling his earlier qualms about going before the family. It was his natural protective instincts, that old "moral fiber" that Fred and George had teased him so frequently about during his fourth year. Dudley had been a real prat growing up, and the elder Dursleys had been nothing short of neglectful and abusive, but Harry was ready to put that aside in order to help out young Arthur Dursley, a boy who was completely blameless in this situation.

"I invited the Dursley family to stay with my family in Godric's Hollow during Easter break, and they've accepted. They'll be arriving in three weeks and staying for thirteen days. I want Arthur to get to know the kids, and get to know the culture, and I would like for Dudley and Sarah to become comfortable with the magical world, comfortable enough at least to send their son to magic school." Harry made a point to look each and every family member in the eye as he spoke. He needed for the Weasleys to understand that this was very important to him. "I would really appreciate it if you all would be welcoming, and understanding and all that. It would be great if you were to be friendly, make them feel comfortable and not," he paused for a moment to stare especially hard at George and Ron, "ostracized or threatened in anyway. It would be a _shame _for a young boy like Arthur to miss out on a magical education because of something we said."

The table was quiet, internalizing Harry's requests; a few were steeling themselves for a rather unpleasant Easter break. Finally, Mrs. Weasley spoke up "Well it will be nice to have some new youngsters around the house. You'll let them know that they are always welcome, of course." She smiled at her only son-in-law in a very motherly way, and Harry returned it gratefully. He was reminded again of Mrs. Weasley's loving and adopting nature, and he was eternally thankful that she would be his ally in getting the rest of the family to treat the Dursleys civilly. "Now, how many children are there then?"

Harry sat down as an ecstatic Lily launched immediately into a description of her newly discovered cousins.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Later in the kitchen, Harry found his two best friends.

"Hey guys," He joined Hermione in washing dishes, which she was doing the muggle way.

"Hey Harry," She smiled and nudged him with her hip. "Nice of you to assist me, unlike my dear husband." Hermione Weasley threw a playful scowl over her shoulder at Ron who was lounging at the kitchen table, reading the Sunday Prophet.

"If you're going to insist on doing the dishes like we're magic-less cavemen, I'm going to insist on sitting right here and catching up on the Cannon's scores." He replied, eyes never leaving the paper.

For a minute the three existed in an easy silence, the type that they had become especially good at since the end of the war, but eventually Harry felt the need to confide in his friends and ask for their advice.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing? By inviting them here?"

For a moment the question hung in the warm kitchen air. Then, "Yeah, of course you are." Ron said gruffly.

Harry looked up from his dishes; almost feeling guilty for being surprised that that was Ron's answer. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Ron put down the Prophet. "You're doing what you always do. You're being the bigger person. And that's a good thing, for the kid stuck in the middle of this at least."

Hermione looked more hesitant. "I'm just worried about you," she said, answering Harry's unasked question, "Living with your cousin again, even if it is extremely temporary, could be very difficult. Even if he's changed, even if you've both grown up and become completely different people, it's still going to be rough. But—" she looked up at him with shining eyes, "As a muggleborn little girl, I would have given anything to discover that I had magical relatives willing to help me. And you are going to help Arthur Dursley so much, even if it is just to tell him stories about Hogwarts and introduce him to magical children his own age."

"Right then." Harry returned to washing plates, feeling much more confident.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

"Hey Teddy, can I get a minute?" Harry caught his godson just as he was leaving the Burrow that night.

"Hey Uncle Harry. Sure," Teddy grinned, "what's kicking?"

Harry smiled in spite of how his day had gone. "Not much, just hoping that I can ask a favor of you,"

Teddy's ears visibly perked up and his turquoise hair brightened several shades. "How big of a favor?"

Harry smiled, knowing that the young man's mind was probably already working over what kind of reward he would get for agreeing to a big enough favor. "Well, you know that my cousin Dudley is coming to town, right?"

Teddy rolled his eyes. "I did happen to be there for that portion of dinner, yes."

"Well he's got a daughter that's not arriving with the rest of the family, and I was hoping that it could be your job to pick her up from the airport and bring her back to Godric's Hollow."

Teddy made a face. He'd heard plenty about these muggle relations, and he wanted as little to do with them as possible, _thank you very much_. "Why me?" he griped.

"Because," Harry reasoned, "You're the only member of the family that lives in London. And you're the only person besides Hermione that can reliably drive a car. And she's close to you in age, so maybe you could answer any questions she might have—"

"Great Aggripa!" the nineteen-year-old exclaimed, "All that? I'm going to need serious gold to let this girl into my car, let alone assuage her fears about her freakish little brother!"

Harry scowled, "Oi, you don't know that it's going to be that bad. And besides, this is important to the family, yeah? Just pick her up and bring her back to the house. Do that for me, and I promise you won't ever have to spend any time with her again." Teddy looked unimpressed, "And," Harry added, "I'll pay for that new microphone you've been eyeing."

Teddy pretended to think for a minute and then nodded. "For you," he said, "I'll do it. I'll pick up the horrid muggle relation and deposit her on your doorstep. But only for you. And that new mic."

Harry nodded, and then thought of a few more things. "Good man. Now, when you pick this girl up, and when you meat the Dursleys, I want your hair to be a regular color. Natural, you know? And I also want that thing out of your ear," He pointed to the slate colored dragon that was somehow skewered through his godson's ear lobe, "These are very regular people, and I don't want their first impression of you to be that you're a no-good punk."

Teddy rolled his eyes and scowled. "Merlin save us." He grumbled. "Regular people."


	9. A Botched Retrieval

Teddy Lupin was beginning to regret agreeing to retrieve Harry's cousin's daughter from the airport. His expertly creased khakis were stiff, his collared shirt was constricting, and his hair was a very normal, very dull ashy brown. His ear felt funny and for a minute he wondered why, until he realized that the slate dragon that normally occupied the gauged piercing was absent.

All in all, he looked like an utter twat.

Also, the girl was almost a quarter of an hour late. Or at least her flight landed a quarter of an hour ago. Teddy wasn't really sure how long it took a Muggle to get off a plane and make it to an exit. He didn't think it should take this long though.

Another surge of people exited the security doors all at once, indicating that yet another flight had landed and disembarked. Perhaps this was hers…? Teddy half-heartedly raised the sign that his youngest god-sister had labored over for hours the previous afternoon. He wasn't sure a new microphone was worth all of this effort and humiliation. Lily Luna, little darling that she was, had instantly identified a problem: Teddy couldn't identify Ramona and Ramona didn't know what Teddy looked like, and had come up with a solution: a sign that was so laden with flowers, butterflies and glitter that it would be hard to miss.

For all of that effort though, not much was coming of it. Several people smiled and pointed at him and his sign, but nobody approached. There was no sign of the girl, whoever she was.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Half an hour out from his designated pickup time, Teddy amused himself by watching the people at baggage claim. There was an old lady who tottered over to her young greeting party and threw her thin arms around them all, showering the couple and their toddler with kisses. A mother waited for her bags and nodded absentmindedly as her ten-year-old son jabbered on and on about the pilots and the planes and the inflight movies. A father greeted his teenager with a slap on the back and a bracing hug.

Teddy searched the room for more colorful folk and his eyes landed on a couple of girls standing over by the only unoccupied benches in the great room. They were a mismatched pair: one tall and thin, the other short and round; one wearing slouching jeans and a tee-shirt, the other wearing a vibrant red skirt and a neatly tucked in button up. There was something about the dynamic between them that drew his gaze like a magnet. The little one smiled and tugged at the taller girl's hair. The tall one rolled her eyes and playfully shoved at her companion. They talked for a few more minutes and then embraced tightly.

It was during the embrace that Teddy Lupin made the most awkward eye contact of his life with the short girl. Immediately he slumped to duck behind his sign, praying that the girl hadn't actually just caught him staring directly at her.

Seconds later his deepest concerns were confirmed.

"HhHmm" Someone cleared their throat from the other side of his sign.

Teddy took a deep breath and lowered his colorful shield. "Hello," he attempted to sound nonchalant.

The taller of the two girls stood before him, eyebrow raised, arms crossed. Her smaller companion was nowhere to be seen. "Hello there, stranger whom I do not know but who obviously knows me. You must be Teddy Lupin." She smiled slightly and stuck out her right hand. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Ramona Dursley."

Teddy couldn't think of anything to say, and so instead he shook the girl's hand and attempted to manage his blush.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

The girl currently occupying the front passenger seat of Teddy's aged Yugo was nothing like what he expected.

For one thing, she looked nothing like the rest of her family, who had taken up residence in the Potter household two days ago. While the Dursley family came in all shapes and sizes (from the gigantic, muscular visage of Dudley to the slim figure of his wife to the three children) this girl wasn't quite like any of the others with her long limbs and thin face. Once more her hair was a tangle of dark, frizzy curls that gathered loosely at the nape of her pale neck. This was in sharp contrast to the uniform blondness of the sun-kissed Dursley clan.

The next thing that Teddy Lupin found odd about the girl was her silence. Had anyone asked him that morning to describe Ramona Dursley he would have used the words that her family had used to describe her, the few times she had come up in conversation. Chaotic. Loud. Slightly rude. Intelligent. Fast on the draw. Curious. Opinionated. Frankly, after observing the Dursley family interact with each other over the past few days, Teddy could understand why Ramona would be all of those things. One would have to be loud, fast on the draw, and opinionated to survive the dynamics of the Dursley family. The brothers bickered, the toddler screeched, and the parents treated it all like a regular occurrence. If he were being honest, Teddy could admit that the entire affair was much like any normal day in a Weasley household. Currently though he was bound and determined to dislike the muggle relatives on principle (one could not simply forget the abuse suffered by his Godfather for years at the hands of Dursleys) and so he found all of their family antics obnoxious.

So Teddy had expected his passenger to be just as loud and obtrusive as her father, mother, sister, and brothers. He was wrong. Ramona Dursley was the opposite of conversational. Were Teddy in a polite mood he would say that the girl was shy, or observant. Currently though he interpreted her lack of communication as a form of snootiness. This girl was obviously too stuck up to talk to the likes of him.

"So… are you excited to see your family again?" Teddy asked, attempting for the nth time to get a conversation started.

"Yes."

He huffed in frustration, and then decided to press on. "I was told you go to boarding school on the opposite side of the country from your family. That must be difficult."

"At first, yes."

Teddy was now white-knuckling his steering wheel. Having a conversation with this girl was like attempting to befriend a flobberworm. "And spending your Spring hols with some family you never even knew about, that must be pretty wild, right?"

"Oh, I've always known about Cousin Harry and his family." The girl replied lightly.

"Really?" Teddy glanced over in surprise. He'd been under the impression that Uncle Harry and his walrus of a cousin weren't in communication, not before the whole son-is-a-wizard thing anyway. "So have you always known about the family situation?" he asked, trying to phrase the question delicately.

The girl cocked an eyebrow. "What situation?"

Teddy felt his face flush. Was she intentionally trying to make this difficult? "You know… the family situation? The one that caused a bit of a rift? The whole mag—"

"Oh yes, that." She interrupted him hurriedly. "Let's not talk about that, shall we?"

Teddy gritted his teeth. "Wassa matter? Does our _situation_ make you uncomfortable?"

Next to him the girl shifted in her seat, turning to face definitively out the window. "Why don't we talk about something more pleasant? The weather, perhaps."

Teddy pressed down on the accelerator ever so slightly. The sooner he made it home the better.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

When the Yugo and its occupants pulled up the drive to the Burrow a short while later there was already a welcoming party entirely consisting of children waiting. A dozen redheads and their three blonde companions were all jostling for the first glimpse of the by-now famed Ramona Dursley and the ever-popular Teddy Lupin.

A loud chorus of "Hiya Teddy,"s and "How's the drive?" greeted everyone's favorite metamorphagus.

"Wotcher everyone!" Teddy called out cheerfully, glad to finally be free of the confines of the car. "Look who I've brought along. For your delight at entertainment, a brand new cousin to play with!" he made a point of gesturing grandly toward the passenger side of the car where his silent traveling companion was just then emerging.

Ted had expected a rousing round of applause, or perhaps a cheer from the Weasley-Potter-Dursley clan before him. After all, Ramona was the long awaited sixth Dursley, the one who, legend had it, was a great source of chaos, fun, and practical jokes. Just because none of those things appeared to be true on the car ride over didn't mean that he couldn't let the kids think them for the time being. There was, however, no applause, no cheers, and no welcomes. Instead the crowd of children before him was silent.

"You're in deep shit." One of them, perhaps the younger, muttered. The other boy, definitely the elder of the two, elbowed his brother but smirked all the same. A rash of snickers broke out amongst the red heads.

Teddy felt the bottom of his stomach drop. "Waddaya mean…" his mouth felt dry.

"Well, that's not Ramona, see?" The older Dursley boy shrugged and gestured toward the girl that Ted had transported home from the airport. This assertion was met by actual guffaws from the children.

The world spun. Teddy Lupin felt as though he were on the verge of becoming violently ill. This was it. Teddy was doomed. There would be no way to make up for this mistake. He, Ted Remus Lupin, had managed to thoroughly mess up what could easily be described as the simplest task ever: pick up Ramona Dursley at the airport; bring her back to the Burrow. How hard could it be, after all, to pick up the right girl from the airport and take her back to her family without exposing everyone to the wrath of the International Statute of Secrecy? And yet here he was, standing in front of a wholly magical house, in possession of a muggle girl who was not his Godfather's cousin's daughter, but was in fact just some random girl who knew nothing about the magical world.

Teddy could see his future crumbling before his very eyes

"Yeah" chimed in the younger brother. "That's Katie. Heya Katie!" He waved wildly, "What's kicking? How come you're here instead of Ramona? Are you gonna stay with us for spring break? Does this mean that you know all about the—"

The girl called Katie cut him off before he could say the rest and seal Teddy's fate as an exposer of magic. "Hold up Wes. That's a secret, remember? Best that I don't know. I'm so very bad at keeping secrets, you see. And no, I can't stay with you for spring break. I've got to see my Dad and brothers." She smiled kindly, and for the first time since she'd confronted him for staring at her in the airport, Ted saw her eyes sparkle with mischief. Maybe there was a chance that this was all some big prank….

From somewhere close to the ground came a happy shriek."Hi hi hi! Hi hi hi, Kaytee, Hi!" From the corner of his horror frozen mind Teddy watched the littlest Dursley toddle over to Katie, reaching her arms up in a silent plea to be held.

And there it was, the final nail in the coffin of Ted Remus Lupin. There was no way that this was just a prank and that this tall, pale, dark haired girl actually did belong to the Dursley family. There was no way that this was just the Dursley siblings taking the mickey. Little Hilly's joyful greetings proved that.

_Fuck. Shite. Merlin's saggy left_—

"Hey, Ted, glad you made it before dinner!" From somewhere behind the noise of the children, which had risen exponentially in volume over the last few minutes, Ted heard the door to The Burrow swing open.

He had been wrong before. _This_ was the end.

Uncle Ron strolled out of the kitchen and toward the commotion, munching on an apple. "Is this the missing Dursley then?"

Teddy couldn't bring himself to speak.

"Oh Teddy, dear, you've returned!" Grandma Molly bustled out of the kitchen, hurridly untying her apron strings so that she could hug her oldest (adopted) grandson. "And you've brought Ramona too! How lovely!"

"No, no," Teddy rasped, feeling the need to lean heavily on something solid.

"Sarah, dear, I believe your daughter has arrived!" Molly called back to her newest friend.

"Oh for Merlin's sake—" Teddy groaned.

Seconds later Sarah Dursley emerged from the same door, wiping her hands on her jeans and adjusting her ponytail. The moment she stepped on to the grass her eyes found the gaggle of children who were now surrounding what was supposed to be her daughter and she couldn't help but chuckle. When her eyes found the defeated form of Ted Lupin, the poor boy tasked with delivering the ever-full-of-surprises oldest Dursley child, Sarah failed to conceal her laughter. Ramona simply had this effect on people.


	10. The Way of the Dursley

In the 16 years that she had been mother to one Ramona June, Sarah Dursley nee Kelly had seen many a frazzled look in response to something her eldest daughter had done. There was the elementary school librarian who had nearly cried during a parent teacher conference (Ramona rearranged all of the books according to how interesting she thought they were). There was a after-school baby sitter who had to inform the befuddled Dursley parents that Ramona was no longer welcome in her care-program due to a rather wild incident involving an iguana, 12 mice from the local school biology lab, and a can of blue paint. There were countless others of course, local shop owners and busboys, Catholic priests and Buddhist monks. Ramona had a habit of throwing people of all ages, occupations, and creeds off balance with her extensive intellect and perchance for causing trouble.

It was for this reason that Sarah Dursley reacted to her daughter's latest antics (and the subsequent look on one Ted Lupin's face) with humor instead of horror. It wasn't that the look of utter desolation on the young man's face was entertaining (indeed, Sarah's motherly instincts were telling her to wrap this boy up in her arms and offer him a glass of milk and a cookie). Instead Sarah's laughter stemmed from the earliest days of motherhood, when her own mother had offered her the most helpful advice that can ever be given to a young mom: "Learn to laugh over your troubles. Learn to find the funny because if you don't laugh you will cry, and crying is a sign of weakness. They can smell weakness."

By the look on Ted Lupin's face he was suffering the inability to find anything funny in his current situation. His eyes, wide as quarters and unblinking, were affixed on some un-seeable point in the distance and his shoes scuffed at the dirt and sparse grass of the Burrow drive. He looked, Sarah reflected, as though he'd just lost something quite important, like the president's pocket watch. Or an entire person.

Sarah shook off the metaphorical cobwebs in her mind and squared her shoulders. Now was the time to prioritize. While there was most likely nothing to be done about Ramona herself, there was a bit of a mess to clean up in the form of a young girl who had just unwittingly stumbled where she should not have.

"Katie, honey, how are you?" she smiled, opening her arms to embrace her daughter's closest friend. From the corner of her eye she could see Molly Weasley turning red as one of the smaller children explained what exactly was going on. Perhaps, Sarah reasoned, if she treated this whole incident as though it was no big deal everyone else would follow suit and she could panic later, in private, over her missing child.

"Fine, Aunt Sarah," Katie grinned, throwing her thin arms around the most motherly person she knew. It had been decided several summers ago that Katie was not allowed to call her Mrs. Dursley (because that was the name of the mother-in-law and, despite the fact that Petunia Dursley was a very dignified and… lovely person, Sarah had absolutely no desire to share a title with the woman who was oftentimes quite critical and occasionally did cringe-worthy things). It had also been discovered that summer that Katie was unable to address a grown-up by their first name. Through all of the holidays and vacations that Katie had spent with the Dursley family the titles of Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dudley had stuck.

Sarah kept an arm firmly around Katie as she steered them casually back towards the car and away from the house. No need for her to see anything she wasn't supposed to. "Katie, dear, as much as I love seeing you, you must understand that you can't stay here." She started cautiously, but apparently her speech was unnecessary.

"Oh I know. I'm on strict marching orders from Ramona not to set foot inside the house, and to take my leave ASAP. I was only here to give her a head start. Now that my job in this whole event is finished up I'm set to catch a ride to my Dad's house." Katie stated frankly, as though the things she were saying were commonplace.

Sarah nodded and took a deep breath. "And you understand that you can't talk to anyone else about this, right?"

"Of course," Sarah put on her best Motherly-order face, but found it to be unneeded. Katie looked back at her with complete honesty, "I'll never tell a soul. After all you've done for me it's the least I can do."

"Alright" Sarah nodded. "So can I get you a cab? Or take you to somewhere where you can get a cab?"

Katie shook her head, hiking her backpack over her shoulder, "It's nice of you to offer but my brother's coming to pick me up. I actually think I saw his car on our way in. Just at the bottom of the hill and around the bend." She smiled and hugged Sarah once more before walking back out to the road.

"I hope you realize that the next time I get both you and Ramona in the same room we will all be having a talk about how inappropriate and dangerous this harebrained scheme was."

"Yes Ma'am," Katie saluted.

"Text me once you get to the car, alright? And again once you get home. If you don't text when you get home I'll assume you've been kidnapped and I will tear the country apart looking for you. You do not want that." Sarah called after her. Katie nodded and smiled, waving goodbye to the kids in the yard.

"And one more thing!" Sarah shouted at the last minute, suddenly remembering to ask. "You said you came here to give my daughter a head start?"

"Yes!"

"A head start to what?"

"No idea!" Katie called back, now quite a ways down the road. "She promised to be back sometime in the next day or two though!"

"Do you know where she's gone?" Sarah yelled.

"Sorry Aunt Sarah! No idea!" Katie called one final time, and then she was gone, concealed by trees and dust.

_Dagnabit _thought Sarah.

(((RAMONAinBLUE)))

Teddy was fairly sure that Dudley Dursley was going to kill him. At 6'5", and approximately 250 pounds of what appeared to be mostly muscle left over from his boxing and football days, Dudley Dursley was a giant of a man. He was a beast of a man. And Teddy had managed to misplace this enormously terrifying man's daughter in a city of just over 8 million people. Yes. Dudley Dursley was going to kill him.

Dudley was almost certain that he could make the boy piss himself. At three inches shorter and almost certainly more than 100 pounds lighter than himself, Teddy Lupin did not look like he regularly got into fights. In fact, the boy had an all around clean, unthreatening look to him. He also looked like he was very close to pants-pissingly terrified territory. Dudley almost wanted to do it, just to set some type of don't-lose-teenage-girls-in-a-crowded-city example for the 19 year-old, but he simply couldn't follow through. Also, his wife of 15 years was giving him the don't-you-dare-make-this-poor-boy-wet-himself-he-is-a-victim-in-this look, which Dudley had to admit was valid. Ted Lupin was more than likely just a tragic bystander in a master plan orchestrated by Ramona for yet undiscovered purposes.

At the kitchen table Harry Potter reflected on the fact that he had no idea what had happened, what was happening, and what was about to take place. In truth, he had a sneaking suspicion that if Molly hadn't placed a firecall to the Auror office requesting his presence in her kitchen, he wouldn't be here at all. He probably wouldn't have even been informed of anything going amiss with Teddy's afternoon retrieval task (which Harry found in-and-of-itself to be weird, seeing as there was a whole entire person missing).

As he watched Dudley and his wife have a silent conversation over everybody else's heads, Harry Potter also came to the conclusion that he had no idea what standard operations were for the Dursley family.

Outside, the three youngest Dursley children were running around and screaming with his own children (something about "catch the plimpie") as though it worried them not a whit that their older sister was missing in a foreign country. Inside, the two Dursley parents were participating in an increasingly heated yet silent conversation that Harry could only surmise was focused on how to best show their displeasure with Teddy. All in all the family was a mystery.

"Ahem." Dudley cleared his throat, and Teddy flinched. Harry grimaced, gearing up for what he assumed would be the most deserved and yet still painful verbal lashing of the century. From her perch against the kitchen sink, Sarah rolled her eyes so hard they seemed about to pop out. _Boys_.

"Ahem" Dudley cleared his throat again, and then continued, "Ted. Son. I am very sorry that this happened to you." From her spot the sink Sarah nodded emphatically. "We, Sarah and I, understand that this… incident was in no way your fault—"

"You must understand we had no idea that this was going to happen," Sarah interrupted. "Had we known, we never would have sent you to get her."

Dudley nodded and cracked his knuckles distractedly, causing Teddy to jump. "The thing to understand about Ramona is that she's got… well. She's very stubborn. And not… rash but—"

"—It's not that she doesn't think about the consequences of her actions, it's just that she doesn't always consider collateral damage." Sarah attempted to explain.

"The point is, she's pulled stunts like this before. There's nothing that you could have done to stop her." Dudley Dursley smiled in what he hoped was a kind manner.

Teddy appeared to be incapable of speech. Harry knew the feeling. Where was the parental worry, the panic that he had seen on the faces of other families with missing loved ones? Where were the irrational demands to find the people responsible for kidnap, to hold someone accountable, to find the unfindable? What was wrong with these people?

"Dudley, Sarah, I swear to you that I will find your daughter." Harry heard himself saying, "I'll get a couple of my Aurors on it immediately and we'll have her found in no time." He wondered briefly if this is what constituted the misappropriation of office manpower and supplies that the M.O.M. had just sent out a memo on. He decided that he really didn't care. "We will bring her home." He said firmly.

For a moment the kitchen was silent as Dudley and Sarah Dursley exchanged long, silent looks. And then Dudley spoke, haltingly, to the cousin that he had so tormented as a child, who was now offering to break government rules in order to return his missing daughter. "Honestly, Harry, I don't think that there's much to be done at this point. And—" he held his hand up to stop the Auror's indignent stirring, "I don't think there's much cause for alarm. If I know my daughter, and I ought to by now, she's simply exploring the city. Taking in new sights and smells and tastes. Ramona is an adventurer, that's just the way she is. If she said she'll be back in a couple days, then she will be." Dudley said with conviction. He hoped to god he was right.


	11. Of Travel and Revels

In a dank basement in Paris and well stocked with wine danced twelve beautiful women in two straight lines.

Ramona could not believe she'd never done a line dance before. Especially seeing as, according to her brand new Parisian friends, it was all the rage in American discos these days. Her eyes followed the hips of the girl in front of her as she tried to replicate the movement precisely. Yes, she probably looked like an idiot in between all of the tall, willowy French girls with their daring smiles and crooked, come hither fingers but….The music was loud, the air was thick, and Ramona was having the time of her life.

LONDON HEATHROW AIRPORT, 18 HOURS EARLIER

"There are so many ways that this can go wrong." Kate Hannagan muttered to herself as she struggled both to keep up with her traveling companion and tow her bags through the heavy crowds of the London Heathrow airport. Ahead of her, Ramona Dursley was practically floating through the swarms of people, her single olive green duffle slung across her breast as if it weighed nothing, the morning sun catching her blonde hair just so. Kate huffed and tugged roughly at her rolling suitcase in order to get it around a rather ill placed table and chairs. Why was it that after 19+ hours of travel, two layovers and a turbulence-laden flight across the Atlantic Ramona Dursley looked like she belonged on a travel brochure? Kate herself was in desperate need of a shower and a change of clothes. Standing in the customs line had made her painfully aware of how disgusting she looked.

"Hey Ramona can we just pause for a minute?" Kate called ahead.

"Katie we need to hurry or else I'll miss my train!" Ramona glanced over her shoulder. "And besides, that boy is probably waiting for you already. Well, me, I mean."

Together the girls passed through the security checkpoint and into the baggage claim area.

"Just one minute Ramona. I just need one minute of your undivided attention."

Perhaps it was Kate's tone, or the way her hair was frizzing, or maybe it was the wrinkled state of her attire that gave her companion pause. Ramona stopped in front of a miraculously unoccupied bench and turned to face her dearest friend.

Beautiful, wild Ramona looked exactly at home in the hustle and bustle of the airport. She looked like a world traveler, the heroine of an indy drama, the subject of an instagram account dedicated to bohemian chicks and sightseeing. It was, perhaps, the most infuriating sight Kate had ever seen and she wanted nothing more than to grab Ramona Dursley by the arms and shake her until she understood just exactly what happened to young, attractive, girls traveling alone in foreign countries. But as she looked at her closest friend she came to the conclusion that there was nothing she could do to stop what was about to take place. There wasn't a force strong enough in the world to blow Ramona off course. Kate had had a speech prepared, had worked it over in her head on the flight over, but now all of those perfectly rehearsed words were gone. So instead of attempting to reason with her, Kate instead chose to play responsible yet supportive.

"Ramona I want you to promise me that you will text at least once. I want you to promise me that you absolutely will not go to anyone's apartment and that you will not split a cab with anyone ever. Be so careful. Please."

Ramona smiled softly and tugged on Kate's ponytail, "I promise."

"And swear to me that you will not drink anything that you did not open yourself."

"Yes."

"And for the love of god, do not walk into ill lit spaces alone—"

"I solemnly swear that I will not die in Paris."

Kate felt her eyes roll despite the wide smile that was beginning to spread across her cheeks. She pushed lightly at Ramona's shoulder. "I love you, Mona Lisa."

"I love you too Katie." Ramona's hands fiddled with the strap of her duffle. She had maybe another 10 minutes before she had to be on the train platform. Something was going to go wrong. She could feel it. "Just remember, please. Remember everything we talked about." Kate nodded, "There should be a guy here to pick you up. He's going to drive you to a house on the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole and—"

Kate sighed and interrupted, knowing that Ramona would be devastated if she missed her train. "—I know, I know, alright? Catch a ride to Ottery St. Catchpole, make my presence known, and then ride home with my brother, who already has a near approximation of the address at which he is to pick me up. And above all else don't even think—"

"Don't even think of setting foot in the house. And no matter what, don't let anyone tell you the secret. If they even start to talk about family business or funny stuff or oddities or anything—"

"I shut them down." Kate once again rolled her eyes, "I know. I know. And I promise that I will only talk about the most boring topics ever during the car ride."

Ramona's smile returned full force. "How on earth did I get so lucky?"

"Don't be a sap, you've got a train to catch." Kate pulled her dearest friend into an embrace, "There are adventures to be had and cities to conquer."

"And there's a rather boring looking guy holding a rather exciting looking sign with my name on it staring directly at us," Kate could feel Ramona's wicked grin despite still being wrapped up in her arms. "Go get 'em tiger." She whispered, and then she was gone.

Sarah sighed. It was just like Ramona June Dursley to make life as exciting as possible. This poor family had no idea what they were in for.

PAIRIS, PRESENT

Ramona couldn't help but laugh as a burley man swept her off of her feet and in a wide circle. She had never in her life felt so out of control, so alive. All around her people were dancing, laughing. This was not the sweaty grinding that dominated school dances back in Montana, this was lightness, this was joy, this was art.

What she would give to have Katie see her now, in the midst of all these strangers, sweating and breathless and completely at the mercy of the music!

Actually it was probably best that Katie wasn't present to witness the arm snaked around her waist, the tickle of breath on the back of her neck, bodies pressed in to hers on all sides. Best not to worry her.

ABOARD A EUROSTAR TRAIN,16 HOURS EARLIER

If there was one thing Ramona prided herself on, it was that she knew how to dress for any occasion. That was the thought running through her mind as she clutched the sink of the minuscule bathroom during a particularly turbulent turn. Around her the train gave a light shudder and then righted itself, instantly returning to the website advertised "smooth, peaceful travel". _Thank goodness. _

Her relief was reflected back to her in the form of a single large, if a bit dingy, mirror that dominated the wall above the sink. Ramona gave herself one final inspection as she struggled with the soap dispenser and faucet. The costume change from International-traveler to reveler in the City of Lights was a subtle one, but she was confident that she had pulled it off. Gone was the button down, collared shirt that tucked sensibly into her skirt; in its place was a black tank top. The long, red, bohemian skirt remained, but sandals replaced hiking boots. Makeup that was impractical for a lengthy flight was applied, and hair was released from its utilitarian bun. It was, Ramona reflected as she tussled with what was supposed to be a hand dryer but was obviously now a useless wall fixture, all rather dramatic: the costume change and journey by train to Paris.

Unauthorized journey by train to Paris.

Ramona almost felt guilty about that part. The fact that she should be with her family and not on a train was eating at the back of her mind. She knew that Arthur was excited to meet the magical Potter family, and logically she knew that her parents would do everything that they could to protect him and Wes and Hilly, to keep them all safe, happy and comfortable but still… Worst possible scenarios were whizzing through her head. Scenarios in which Cousin Harry found justification to take Arty away from them, whisk him away from his muggle family and their bad influence. Scenarios in which Arthur was taught that his muggle family were bad, that they were wrong, that they didn't love him and couldn't understand him. Scenarios that would never happen but which she couldn't help but worry about. Dudley and Sarah Dursley would do their best, but when it came down to it, both of them would be trying to smooth things over with the Potter family, and would avoid stirring up trouble.

Stirring up trouble was, on the other hand, Ramona Dursley's specialty.

She held her gaze with the mirror for a moment more and then shook her head as though to clear away unwanted worries. Tonight was not about stirring up trouble, and it was not about old family feuds. It was about having fun, exploring Paris, the city of life, city of love, city of possibilities. With that she exited the bathroom and picked her way back to her seat, now more mindful of the sticky sections of aisle floor than she had been in her hiking boots.

There was now, Ramona realized upon approach, a trio of what appeared to be university students occupying the set of seats she had previously had to herself. She considered, briefly, finding a different, unoccupied space and abandoning the water bottle she had left behind to guard her chair. But that was not adventurous, and therefore not in the spirit of what she was attempting to do. Ramona squared her shoulders and thought brave thoughts.

"Bonjour,"

The trio of students barely shifted in their seats to eye her. Their joking halted and for a moment it appeared that they intended to freeze her out. Then one of the men smiled "Bonjour!" and gestured to her original chair, now empty save for a sad water bottle.

Ramona tried to keep her smile from being awkward and took the seat "Je m'appelle Ramona," she said, and then took a swig of water. She didn't know enough French to tell them that she'd been sitting here before, but she thought that drinking assuredly from the water bottle that she'd left behind would show them that this was, in fact, her seat and that she wasn't being intentionally creepy.

"Je m'appelle Claude, il est Henry, et elle est Magdalene," Claude pointed each out in turn. Henry and Magdalene line each gave a little wave.

"Comment allez-vous?" Ramona responded. She was running through her minuscule French vocabulary rather fast, and soon there would be nothing more she could say.

Claude's eyebrows came together in brief confusion and then he smiled. "Non, non." He shook his head. "Ca vas?" He smiled and gestured to himself and his companions, a sort of circular 'all of us are together' that included her.

"Ah" Ramona nodded, understanding his meaning. _Informal. Got it._ "Ca vas?"

It was the girl, Magdalene that responded this time "Ca vas bien, et toi?"

"Tres bien" Ramona nodded. And that was the end of her conversational French.

Her new traveling companions seemed to realize this almost immediately. "You are English, then?" Claude said, his own English almost comically nasally.

Ramona shook her head, relieved that she wasn't about to spend the next half hour in painfully awkward silence. "American."

"Ah," Claude nodded, "Your accent is very good. Almost unnoticeable."

"Thanks, I think."

"An American taking the train from London to Paris. What do you plan on doing in the city?" Magdalene leaned forward, her elbows propped on dainty knees, her chin positioned on knuckles just so, her eyebrows artfully cocked.

Ramona gave a half shrug, " I have no definite plans. I just want to see the city. Get a feel for it."

"You want to see the museums, you mean." Henry spoke up for the first time, rather darkly. "The Louvre, The National Modern, The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame."

"Yes, museums would be nice," Ramona admitted. She recognized that she was on thin ice in this conversation, with Henry at least, "but really I just want to know the people. The life." _Please let them see that I'm trying not to be just another tourist. I already failed at speaking French, just give me this. _

Henry's eyebrows lifted and Claude continued to smile, but it was the lovely Magdalene who responded first, beaming triumphantly. "It is good that you sat with us then, because we are the people. We are the life. And tonight, we will take you with us!"

And with that, Ramona's destiny was instantly changed, and her fate was sealed.

At least that's what she liked to imagine.

PAIRIS, PRESENT

The basement nightclub was stuffy, the air just on the verge of being suffocating, but it was all Ramona could do to pull herself out of the crowd and away from the dance floor. She had long since lost track of Claude, Magdalene, and Henry but that was, she mused, the way of things.

The four of them had chatted for the remainder of the train ride, and they ate a late dinner together and saw a terribly dubbed action film afterward. Magdalene had practically dragged Ramona to the club afterwards, but two hours into the music and the haze and the trio was nowhere to be seen. Ramona wasn't too cut by this departure though, she had very little in common with the university students and they had been polite enough not to ditch her directly after dinner, after all. She couldn't begrudge them their own lives and plans.

After dancing for so long though, even Ramona had to admit she needed a bit of a break. 'Just a short rest,' she promised the people around her, 'and then I'll be back.' 'Non, non, stay!' Was the phrase repeated, but they let her go anyway and in an instant the hole where she used to be was filled and the dancing continued seamlessly. Ramona shook her head and chuckled lightly to herself before elbowing her way up a very crowded staircase and through the foyer to the front door. The way the nightclub was set up it almost resembled a house party, with no waiting line or bouncer with an access list and so Ramona felt no qualms about walking out the door and into the warm spring night with it's clear, clean air. The man behind the bag check counter gave her a wink as she passed and she winked back, knowing that he was taking good care of her duffle, or at least if he wasn't, that there wasn't much worth stealing inside of it.

The darkness outside the club was a different kind of darkness than inside it and, like a moth to flame, Ramona found herself drawn into the halo of a street lamp just ten paces away from the stoop. A voice inside her head that sounded an awful lot like Katie gave a squeak of protest, but Ramona silenced this internal cry almost immediately. This was Paris, the real Paris, and it was worth it to walk ten paces away from a seedy nightclub to stand under a Parisian street lamp just for the experience. Something giddy rose through her and, as she often had in the past, the feeling overtook Ramona. She lifted her arms, face and palms upward, and spun in a circle, stumbling clumsily at the end. Down the street she heard a few titters and a giggle, but she didn't care. This was the feeling that Ramona had been searching for, and here, under the streetlight, she felt at home.

"Need a smoke there, Tiny Dancer?" a voice called out from the darkness. It was a man, his accent English, his face obscured, but his presence very corporeal.

Ramona leaned against the lamppost, her smile still spread wide over her cheeks despite the man's intrusion into her own private heaven. "No thanks. It's a nasty habit."

"Ummm," the man grunted, and out of the night she saw the end of a cigarette ignite. "An American in Paris, then."

"A bit more rare than an Englishman in Paris, I suppose,"

"Yes well, they haven't made that film yet, have they?" The man chuckled to himself and wandered closer into the light, and at last he was completely visible. "Wouldn't be half as interesting, I imagine. I've been told we're perceived as a dry and ill-humored bunch." He smirked and his brown eyes sparkled in the glow of artificial lighting.

Ramona felt a tingling in her toes. This wasn't just a stranger, this was a boy. A very attractive boy, perhaps just on the edge of being a man. Talking to her under a Parisian streetlight, of all people and places. The details of his face were hard to pin down, but his long, slightly bent nose carved a deep shadow over his cheekbones and his jaw threw sharp definition over his neck and collar. The stubble on his chin may have been a sandy brown but the hair on his head was a loud blue green and Ramona found herself instantly in love with the idea of this boy. Turqoise. That's what the hair was, she realized, and then moments later she remembered that she was staring, and that he had actually said something quite funny. _Think, you idiot! _Her brain screamed, _For god's sake respond so that he doesn't think you're an imbecile! _But nothing was coming, and so instead she smiled, and lounged against the lamppost, and secretly mourned the loss of this boy's interest, even if he wasn't quite gone yet.

But instead of leaving, the boy did something wholly unexpected, something shocking. He held out a hand, large and lightly callused, well kept fingernails attached to long fingers and "Would you care to dance?"

His words derailed an already struggling chain of thoughts and for a moment Ramona was too shocked to respond, too shocked to move, too shocked to even pinch herself and – "I'd love to."

She took his hand, and they returned to the basement nightclub in the old house in Paris, well stocked with wine.


	12. She of the Perfect Hips

Her hips fit perfectly under his hands. He knew that in the grand scheme of things that wasn't such a significant factor, that, practically speaking the fact that her hips and his hands seemed made for each other meant next to nothing but still…. Here, in the dark of the nightclub basement, surrounded by drunks and addicts and free spirits and sweat, here it meant everything in the world. _Everything._ His thoughts were hazy, like the air that swirled thickly past his ears. His thoughts were hazy and she was lovely.

She was okay under the Parisian street lights, utterly average if he was being completely honest. Still, something about her lips had made him want to talk to her and something about her wrists had made him ask her to dance with him. So he did. And it was good that he had asked her to dance because under the streetlights she was, at best, mediocre but here in the noise and in the music, and in the dark, and in the moment she was the most stunningly lovely person he'd ever laid eyes on. Moving against him (her hips, his hands) she was devastating. She was daunting. Enrapturing. Entrapping.

She tilted her head back, breathing in the thump of the bass and her golden hair brushed briefly against his knuckles. She smiled and her thick lips caught the shimmer of an errant strobe light. In the neon flashes and basement darkness her eyes were almost completely washed out: a pale and perishing green. He had never loved eyes quite so much.

_I'm probably a little drunk. _He thought dazedly.

"You probably are," She laughed in reply, and her laugh was fantastic.

Underneath his hands her hips curved and swayed. Against his chest her fingers tapped a rhythm. They were dancing closer together now and when she laughed her fantastic laugh he had to laugh too because of how the vibrations of her body trembled through him.

There wasn't any more talking. Just dancing.

They danced for what felt like days, weeks, hours, him and her, she and him (her hips his hands, her fingers his chest, her body his laugh)

…until he finally felt the alcohol leak from his fingers and toes and he was left wearily sober and she was sagging against him, dancing the dance of the sleep deprived. And for a brief moment, free from the influence of alcohol and crowd mentality (the club was clearing out), he wondered if he aught to be dancing like this with a girl he barely knew. He didn't really do hookups, it wasn't his style, and there was a nice empty flat waiting for him across town, with a mattress he fully intended to sleep on just as soon as he got home. And glory only knew what this girl was like when she wasn't dancing in clubs with strange men all night long. She could be a nutter for all he knew, escaped from some facility. Even worse, she could be some kind of dullard, utterly beige in both personality and looks.

"Hey," He nudged the girl's side with his thumb a bit, his hands still resting on her hips as they swayed out of time to the DJ's swan song, "Club's shutting down. Don't have to go home but we can't stay here, and all that." His voice was rough from disuse and exhaustion. Really all he wanted was to get back to the flat. He'd find the girl a cab, he decided and then they would go their separate ways. All would be well. "C'mon," he nudged her again.

She mumbled, and nestled her head further into him.

He felt the tip of her nose scrape against the exact center of his chest.

Her hips still fit perfectly in his hands.

They swayed together a moment more, the last couple left on the dance floor.

"Alright," she mumble sighed at last, lifting her head from his chest, and she grabbed his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. _Why the hell not?_ He sighed, _Why not just hold her hand until we get up to the street and catch a cab? I'll pay the fare, she'll give me her number, and I'll tell her I'll call. She and her perfect hips will never hear from me again, so why not hold her hand on our way out? _

She led him up the stairs, through the front room and out the front door. Somewhere along the way she had acquired an army green duffle bag and it was now slung expertly across her shoulders. Her hand pulled him along and somewhat sleepily he noticed that her long hair was a bit matted and mussed and… the bottom three inches or so were a cobalt blue.

They stopped on the cobblestones, just on the edge of a halo of lamp light fast becoming unnecessary in the breaking dawn, barely linked together by the fingers that hung limply between them. She turned to him and once again he was struck by how ordinary she appeared, and how inexplicably and extremely he was drawn to her. Her eyes were greener in the soft morning, living, budding green. She was looking at him and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. It wasn't a look that said she was expecting something, it wasn't a look asking for a response it was simply…

He knew that he ought to call her a cab, usher her off so that he could be on his way. But he was still holding her hand. And as perfectly as her hips had fit in his grasp that was nothing compared to holding hands with her. He needed to ask where she was headed, needed to see her off, should probably let go of her hand now.

He didn't do any of those things though. Instead he cleared his throat and said, even though he was exhausted and in desperate need of sleep, "Would you like to get breakfast?"

And despite the fact that she was about to fall over, despite warnings she had received about going of with strangers, she smiled. "I'd love to."

Ted Lupin beamed. Ramona Dursley blushed. Together they walked hand in hand down the street.


End file.
